I saw a post on Facebook yesterday, it said that Media Matters is changing their focus from primarily Fox News to fake news websites and Facebook. The post was from a Politco page on FB. So I take it to be true….right?

My mom has her specialist appointment today, this morning. We are driving down to Gainesville for that…so I’ve scheduled the post. I hope there are no formatting issues. If so, maybe Dak or BB can clean it up. I will try to pop in later on…if I can. Have a good day.

Good Afternoon!!

Here’s something we can do right away to let the PEOTUS know how we feel about his decision to install a white supremacist in the White House. A friend invited me to join this Facebook group that is asking people to send postcards from their states to Trump Tower between November 26 and 28. I sent invitations to my Facebook friends, so many of you will be getting them. Here’s the plan:

1. Get a postcard from your state – any picture that represents your state.
2. In the message section, write this simple message: NOT BANNON!
3. Sign your name if you wish
4. Address it as follows:
Donald Trump
c/o The Trump Organization
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022
5. Affix a stamp – you can use a 35 cent postcard stamp, or a normal letter stamp.
6. Take a picture of your postcard that you can share on social media using the hashtag #stopbannon#postcardavalanche
7. Drop it in the mail between Saturday, Nov 26th and Monday, Nov. 28th to create a concentrated avalanche of postcards.

Now invite, invite, invite! The more voices we can get in the mail, from the more states, the better. To make it go viral we will all need to share the details with our sphere of influence in whatever ways we feel comfortable. Feel free to copy and paste the details or even post your own public event. The more the merrier!

If you are unfamiliar with Steve Bannon, he is a white supremacist who is also the head of a media company that proliferates misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic views. The Donald is about to make him chief White House strategist. We have to stand up for American values against this man!

People on social media, ranging from regular Janes to celebrities, have been passing around Mike Pence’s official contact information.

Why?

To encourage others to make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Pence’s name and send him a notification of the gift.

Planned Parenthood confirmed that people are putting their money where their tweets are. Of more than 200,000 donations made to Planned Parenthood since the election, 46,000 have been made in the vice president-elect’s name, according to the organization.

Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, took a break from planning the next administration on Friday night by attending the popular Broadway show “Hamilton.”

Though Pence received a smattering of applause when he arrived, the New York audience mostly greeted the Indiana governor with boos….

The hip-hop musical about one of the country’s founding fathers, with its multicultural cast and tale of immigrant pride, has been a favorite of liberals. One of its songs was first performed at the White House when creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was a guest of President Obama.

However, upon the show’s curtain call, the cast and crew of Hamilton, led by actor Brandon Victor Dixon, had a strong message to deliver to the VP-elect. “There’s nothing to boo here, we’re all here sharing a story of love,” Dixon said. “We have a message for you, sir.”

“Vice President-elect Pence, welcome. Thank you for joining us at Hamilton – An American Musical. We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values, and work on behalf of ALL of us,” Dixon said.

Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr in the production, then again thanked Pence for attending a show featuring a “diverse group of men and women of different colors, creeds and orientations.” “We don’t have to fight one another. The beautiful part of this country is… we don’t have to agree, but we gotta live here, baby, and share with one another,” Dixon added.

Watch the video at the LA Times or Rolling Stone link.

PEOTUS has already sent two whiny tweets claiming that Pence was “harassed.”

Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing.This should not happen!

PEOTUS is not a fan of the first amendment to the Constitution. I wonder if he realizes how millions of people are going to greet his inauguration? He is going to hear a lot of boos in the next four years–if he lasts that long. He’d better get used to it. This isn’t Venezuela or Nazi Germany yet.

Meanwhile, the Trump organization is already well on the way to turning the U.S. Government into a kleptocracy. You probably saw that photo of Ivanka Trump sitting in on a meeting between her father and the Japanese Prime Minister. Ivanka’s husband was there for part of the meeting too.

Donald Trump is leveraging his new position as president-elect to empower his business empire — and he’s doing it publicly.

We’ve known for some time that Trump didn’t plan to actually resolve the unprecedented conflicts his far-flung business interests presented.

Instead of liquidating his assets and placing them in a Qualified Diversified Trust, as President Bush did, or investing in index funds and government bonds, as President Obama did, Trump has done nothing.

He’s waved away concerns about conflicts-of-interest, saying that he would just hand over control of his business interests to his children.

He called this a “blind trust” but it is actually the opposite. A blind trust is when you hand marketable assets over to a neutral third party to control. The contents of the trust, since they can be traded at any time by the administrator, are soon unknown to you. Trump knows what his assets are and says he is handing them to his children.

Immediately after Trump’s election, he named three of his adult children — Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr. — to his transition team. This means the same people running the Trump Organization will also be choosing the top officials in the Trump administration.

Trump could have kept Ivanka’s participation private. Instead, his team handed out a photo featuring Ivanka.

Please go read the rest. They are thumbing their noses at all that is decent and ethical.

And remember that Trump hotel in Washington DC–right near the White House? Foreign leaders and diplomats will soon be able to bribe the President of the U.S. by staying in that hotel on their official visits. They will be able to do the same by staying in other Trump branded hotels and patronizing his golf courses and other businesses.

About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.

The event for the diplomatic community, held one week after the election, was in the Lincoln Library, a junior ballroom with 16-foot ceilings and velvet drapes that is also available for rent.

Some attendees won raffle prizes — among them overnight stays at other Trump properties around the world — allowing them to become better acquainted with the business holdings of the new commander in chief.

“The place was packed,” said Lynn Van Fleit, founder of the nonprofit Diplomacy Matters Institute, which organizes programs for foreign diplomats and government officials. She said much of the discussion among Washington-based diplomats is over “how are we going to build ties with the new administration.”

Back when many expected Trump to lose the election, speculation was rife that business would suffer at the hotels, condos and golf courses that bear his name. Now, those venues offer the prospect of something else: a chance to curry favor or access with the next president.

Perhaps nowhere is that possibility more obvious than Trump’s newly renovated hotel a few blocks from the White House, on Pennsylvania Avenue. Rooms sold out quickly for the inauguration, many for five-night minimums priced at five times the normal rate, according to the hotel’s manager.

Read more at the link, but prepare to be nauseated.

That’s all I have the strength for today. Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread, have courage and hold onto your values for dear life.

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Hello Nasty Women and Bad Hombres! Did ya vote yet?

Well, after an exciting morning without electricity, I wandered on down to the Poland Avenue Fire station known as OFD Engine 24 and Ladder 4. I voted for Hillary!!! So, here’s my white pant suit look and a shot of the ninth ward, ninth precinct Souls standing in line for the Polls.

The gentleman signing in lives two doors down from me! He’s not getting around like he used to when I first moved to the kathouse over 16 years ago but he managed to vote!! I actually talked to another black man a bit younger than me that said he hadn’t voted since high school! That means he skipped electing President Obama but made it here to vote for Hillary! Every one here in New Orleans is standing in the longest lines we’ve ever seen and to my knowledge the old Morial/Landrieu machine is not up and running for anything!

The most fun pictures are coming from Pant Suit Nation where I’m seeing the selfies being taking of mothers taking their young daughter to the polls. We have a subchapter for Louisiana now and I’m seeing kids from all over the state pressing the button for their moms!

I’ve cried watching live video coming from Susan B Anthony’s grave. Lots of stickers and women paying tribute to this great woman! See that video on BB’s post right before this one!

I’ve laughed watching Donald Trump get boo’d at his local polling place so thought I’d let it give you a good laugh too! I’ve shared it below!!!

I’m just so excited about today! Can you believe after all these years we’re finally here together and doing all this?

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Hey, here’s a post with some quick links for you to check out. Again today I found myself having difficulty writing something. My enthusiasm is about as high as a contestant on the Miss America pageant…when she is told to make way for Trumpy as he barges in the dressing room.

I have had to deal with some family members posting things on my Facebook wall during this election. One, who is becoming a Catholic Priest…posted some links to the usual anti-abortion/pro-life shit, and proceeded to get into it with dear friends on patriarchy and such. Mona and I put the kibosh on that one.

But another cousin has been a little more vocal with the Trump rhetoric. Going so far as to put some bigoted stuff on my Hillary threads.

Well, last week I put up a link to an amnesty that was held on the Mexican Border for 3 minutes so that families could come together from the USA and Mexico and see each other and hug and kiss…it was an emotional video.

Well, he mouthed off about immigrants again, using that passive aggressive crap about defriending him etc…and it took me a few days but I finally put him in his place today. (By the way, Mary Maw is Junior’s mother.) Here is what I told him…

Junior…just a few thoughts. I think it is so ironic that you seem so full of hatred towards immigrants when our family immigrated here all those years ago, and had to deal with the same hateful prejudices that you are projecting now. Please think about it…understand something about our Latin last names. Do you not realize that my Nana and Mary Maw had experienced this same hate and prejudice back in the days when Trump says that his America was Great. If your heritage is Italian, Spanish, Cuban…you were treated with disgust. You could not swim over at Sulfur Springs public beaches. (the signs read no dogs blacks or Italians ) and in our own personal case, my Nana’s niece, Annie Centinaro, who graduated at the very top of her class in secretary school back in the late 1930s…never found a job in her field because she was of Italian descent. Don’t forget that in Tampa Florida…The Latin community had to band together to form Centro Espanol and Estudiano Hospitals to help other Latins get medical care because of the lack of options available to them…all because of the similar hate and prejudice which is tearing the nation apart. Why else would the KKK be supportive of a candidate whose slogan is Make America Great Again. It is a turn on the phrase Make America White Again…and it is not what our country is about. At least it is not what my country is about. I will not defriend you. That is ridiculous. We are family. But I only ask that you respect my wishes and refrain from posting hate filled statements on my wall. Thank you.

It made me also think about another thing his mother shared with me back when I was younger…in 6th grade, and had to do a report on home remedies for an English assignment. Mary Maw was one of three women to give me a recipe on how to induce an abortion. Give that a few moments thought.

So for my Great Aunt Mary Maw…My Nana…My other Great Aunt Annie…I look forward to Tuesday’s results, when that fucking Glass Ceiling is broken, and Hillary Clinton, a woman is elected President of the United States.

Weeks after his death, a photo surfaced of Rahman’s body at the location where he was found dead. In it, an officer from the North County Police Cooperative is wearing latex gloves while holding Rahman’s limp arm with one hand and giving a “thumbs up” to the camera with the other.

The photo does not break any specific laws, but it raises serious questions about officers’ conduct and the handling of evidence.

“In your mind, is there any reasonable explanation for what that officer was doing?” Trager asked the grieving mother.

“No,” she replied. “Because when they come to a call, they’re supposed to be there to help and protect, not doing what he was doing with thumbs up and a smirk on his face.”

Her attorney, Antonio Romanucci, said, “It’s hideous. The implications of this photograph are just astronomical.”

“I have seen thousands and thousands of forensic photographs, I have never seen a staged photograph of an officer next to a deceased body,” he said. “Who was there that allowed this to go on? Was there any Sergeant involved? Those are the questions that need to be asked and that’s what needs to be found here.”

It’s still unclear how the photo was leaked to the public. Police only responded to Staton’s queries when the TV station became involved. They said that they can’t find their official crime scene camera and that hard copies of the photos are missing as well.

Cops refused to answer questions on camera. More at the link.

Up next?

What’s it like for sexual assault survivors to hear Donald Trump talk about his accusers?

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This election is going to put me in the booby hatch for good. I can’t take it. I thought things were all good…Clinton had this in the bag, but noooooo. Some #assholedickwad has to go and stick his misogynistic letterhead in the election.

Now I’m getting these emails saying that Trump is ahead in the “poles” uh I mean polls.

While poverty rates are down and incomes in general are up, the improvement has not been enough to reach many of the nearly 1.7 million poor Georgians, said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs. “The more troubling news is that the poor and near-poor live in a precarious situation,” The simple fact is, it is expensive to be poor in Georgia.”

The downbeat assessment comes more than six years after the economy started struggling back from a nasty recession and more than four years after job growth restarted in Georgia. The unemployment rate in the state has finally returned to pre-recession levels.

But the rate does not include children, one in four of whom are believed to be living in poverty. And the unemployment rate doesn’t include people who have dropped from the workforce and it does not reflect the mix of jobs – many of the added jobs are low-wage positions and many of the Georgians who work have more than one paycheck to get by.

Earlier this year, over 5,000 folks living in the metro Atlanta area lost their food stamps, officially called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Georgia joins 39 other states that are slowly switching back to the ‘no work, no food,’ model. (Although to be fair, the money from SNAP is never enough to actually cover a month’s worth of food).

[…]

In Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall Counties, where the ‘no work, no food’ model is in place, the AJC reported a drop of 60 percent in childless SNAP recipients — from over 6,100 to under 2,500.

And another 10,000 folks are slated to join them, while lawmakers talk about ultimately expanding the work requirements to all 159 counties.

While having dependents (or approved disabilities) exempts SNAP recipients from the work requirement, this ignores other caretakers roles people may take on full-time — such as those for parents, spouses or grandchildren.

It also provides little guarantee to certain vulnerable populations — like those dealing with intimate partner violence — who are also more likely to face food insecurity. Safety nets like SNAP can often be critical to these folks being able to leave.

“No one who is able-bodied and able to work should be drawing food stamps, period,” Rep. Greg Morris (R – Vidalia) told the AJC, apparently ignoring the vast number of food stamp recipients who are employed, but dependent on safety net programs because they are unable to make a living wage in a state with crummy labor laws.

“The greater good is people being employed, being productive and contributing to the state,” said Bobby Cagle, director of the state Division of Family and Children Services.

This just seems like an unrealistic, poorly thought-out way to achieve the goal of “motivating” people to work. Folks need food security to function. They need food security to be able to leave violent or dangerous living situations; they need food security to be able to take care of loved ones; they need food security to be able to consistently take medications and manage chronic health conditions; and they need food security to apply for jobs and conduct interviews.

Folks need food security to function and policymakers should stop messing with that for the sake of low-hanging ideological wins.

TOKYO, JAPAN – A story about a patient who sparked a fire and was seriously burned during surgery when she passed gas on the operating table is going viral on social media and making headlines around the world.

The incident took place during an operation at the Tokyo Medical University Hospital in the Shinjuku Ward on April 15.

The Asahi Shimbun , an English news site based in Japan, reports that the patient was in surgery, having a laser applied to her cervix, when her flatulence sparked a fire. The patient suffered burns to her waist and legs.

Experts investigated the incident to find out what could have caused the fire.

They released their findings on October 28, 2016.

“When the patient’s intestinal gas leaked into the space of the operation (room), it ignited with the irradiation of the laser, and the burning spread, eventually reaching the surgical drape and causing the fire,” the report said.

Experts say there were no flammable materials in the operation room at the time of her surgery. They also said that everything was functioning normally.

Even the website Snopes.com has confirmed the unbelievable story. The patient’s current condition was not released in the reports.

Demand James Comey immediately resign his position as director of the FBI. Immediately upon his departure launch an investigation of his public statements about the ongoing investigation relating to State Department handling of classified materials as blatant attempts to influence the election in violation of the Hatch Act.

It is currently at 684 signatures. Which is not very much, and that is rather surprising to me. what do you think?

Quick note, sorry this post is late. We went for a hike earlier today down the Appalachian Trail. It was beautiful, but man was it difficult for my fat ass to make it up those steep rocks. I will post some pictures at the end of the post…

The discovery of a trove of emails from one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides occurred weeks ago, law enforcement officials told CNN.

But the FBI didn’t disclose the discovery until Friday, raising questions about why the information was kept under wraps and then released only days before the election.

The emails from Clinton aide Huma Abedin were found on a computer belonging to her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.

CNN reported on September 22 that prosecutors in Manhattan had issued a subpoena for Weiner’s communications as part of an investigation into alleged sexting with an underage girl.

FBI criminal investigators soon after stumbled on the Abedin emails.

By early October, it was clear to investigators that the emails may relate to the Clinton email server investigation, law enforcement officials said.

But internal discussions at the FBI about how to proceed continued over the ensuing weeks.

The delay was first reported by the Washington Post.

In his Friday letter to Congress, FBI Director James Comey said he was briefed on the new findings a day earlier. He didn’t say when he first learned of the existence of the emails.

FBI officials moved to disclose the development then because they feared the information would leak otherwise, law enforcement officials said.

Comey’s notification to Congress of the review is rocking the final days of the presidential race. Democrats are furious that Comey would revive the explosive issue of Clinton’s email server so close to the election. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is seizing on the review after spending weeks on the defense, hoping it will be a potent issue he can ride until the end of the contest.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta blasted Comey on Sunday for disclosing the review.

“He might have taken the first step of actually having looked at them before he did this in the middle of a presidential campaign, so close to the voting,” Podesta said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

It is also known that the FBI did not have a warrant for these emails.

Now we learn that Democratic lawmakers may not have even seen the letter before Chaffetz, eager to influence the outcome of the election, tweeted it.

A senior Democratic congressional aide provided the following statement to Shareblue:

Democratic Ranking Members on the relevant committees didn’t receive Comey’s letter until after the Republican Chairmen. In fact, the Democratic Ranking Members didn’t receive it until after the the Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, tweeted it out and made it public.

This is disturbing, but not surprising. During the Benghazi hearings, it become abundantly clear that Republican members were not seeking the truth but were cynically playing politics with the lives of dead Americans to derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The strange events of October 29 are further confirmation that Republican politicians like Chaffetz are using their office not to do the people’s business, but to target a single Democrat for destruction, using any means necessary.

They will fail, because voters see through their dirty tricks.

24 hours after Chaffetz pulled his stunt and Trump’s campaign jumped on the bandwagon, it has backfired. Clinton’s supporters are outraged and energized, more eager than ever to defend Clinton against these scurrilous attacks.

I hope the editors of ShareBlue are correct about this latest attack backfiring. The thought of a Trump presidency is too much for me to bear.

The rest of today’s links are varied. I will post them in link dump fashion:

A strong earthquake that shook Italy on Sunday morning took a heavy toll on historic churches and other landmark buildings, some dating back to the Middle Ages.

No deaths were reported, and only “tens” of injuries, but the physical damage was extensive.

In Preci, the walls of a hillside cemetery came crashing down on top of the Abbey of Saint Euticius, founded in the 5th century by a group of Syrian monks and hermits and now crushed under the weight of its own burial ground.

The old town of Arquata del Tronto, in the central region of Le Marches, was virtually destroyed, along with its 13th century church dedicated to Saint Francis. Only the castle remains, still standing guard over the ruins below.

In Norcia, a city that considers itself the birthplace of pork sausages, three of the most important churches were heavily damaged.

Yes, you read that right…the birthplace of pork sausages.

Sunday’s quake was the strongest of a recent flurry of earthquakes. It registered 6.5 on the Richter scale, according to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, and was felt the entire length of the Italian boot. It struck at 7:40 a.m. local time. The strongest hit areas were Le Marche and Umbria.

Even in Rome, more than 110 miles to the east, the papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls was damaged. It shows some cracks on its facade, some cornices have crumbled, and a candelabra is at risk of dropping down from the ceiling.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi vowed that Italy would rebuild the homes, churches and other damaged structures and that financial resources would be found to restore essential elements of the national identity and cultural heritage. “We will rebuild everything,” he said Sunday, “the houses, the churches, the shops. We are dealing with marvelous territories, territories of beauty.”

The number of human casualties could have been much greater, but residents of many of the historic town centers had been moved out when the tremors began last week.

This last bit is sad…look what happened to a rose window that was repaired just recently.

“In Italy we do not throw away the rubble,” said Fabio Carapezza-Guttuso, the Ministry of Culture’s national crisis management unit officer. “Even single stones are numbered and handpicked so that they can later be used in the reconstruction, along with pieces of wood, iron and beams. It’s a big effort, and that is why we employ archaeologists to sift through the ruins.”

Carapezza-Guttuso mentioned, as an example, the work done to restore the rose window of the church of Saint Augustine in Amatrice, which was badly damaged in a deadly earthquake in August. That window is now ready — but what remained of the church collapsed Sunday.

The latest in men’s birth control…halted, because the men can’t take the side effects.

Apparently women can have such ailments as depression and acne thrust upon them for the greater good of preventing an unwanted pregnancy, but the same level of discomfort cannot be expected of men

The finding that the latest version of the injected male contraceptive is now very effective is fantastic news. In a trial of 320 men, researchers found that, over a one-year period, it was 96 per cent effective in preventing pregnancy. A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation said: “The study found it is possible to have a hormonal contraceptive for men that reduces the risk of unplanned pregnancies in the partners of men who use it.”

But the trial of the drug has already been halted – because just 20 of the men (out of 320, don’t forget) found the side effects of the injection intolerable and it was decided that more research needed to be done to try and counteract them. Those side effects included depression, muscle pain, mood swings, acne and changes to the libido.

Do any of those side effects sound familiar? Oh yes, they’re the minor side effects of the combined pill, used by 48 per cent of women aged 16 to 19, 64 per cent of women aged between 20 and 24 and a majority (55 per cent) of those aged between 25 and 29.

How sad for these poor men – they couldn’t handle the side effects that so many women have to deal with every day just to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. Women have had to bear the responsibility of contraceptionsince the pill was first launched in 1962 – and all of the side effects that go along with it.

As most anyone with a uterus can attest to, hormonal contraception can have some serious side effects, including nausea, headaches, weight gain, decreased libido, depression, and yes, mood swings.

Broadly reports on new research from the University of Edinburgh which suggests that men might also be able to effectively take hormonal birth control, meaning women wouldn’t solely have to suffer than burden. But before you throw a parade/throw out your pills, you should know that the study was stopped because men were experiencing side effects that many women using hormonal contraception currently experience.

Men wait an average of 49 minutes before being treated for abdominal pain. For women, the wait is 65 minutes for the same symptoms. It’s thought that this is because women are seen as exaggerating pain and being ‘dramatic’ due to sexist stereotypes

John Guillebaud, professor of reproductive health at University College London, revealed this week that research shows period pain can be as “bad as having a heart attack”. He said: “Men don’t get it and it hasn’t been given the centrality it should have. I do believe it’s something that should be taken care of, like anything else in medicine.”

Dr Imogen Shaw, a GP specialising in women’s healthcare, welcomed his comments, saying: “I wouldn’t say [period pain] has been hugely investigated,” and when asked if the issue would be taken more seriously if men experienced it, said: “I suspect there would be, being very cynical.”

It is extraordinary how little the medical profession engages with menstruation. Although recent years have seen period taboos broken through social media campaigns, this has yet to permeate medical discourse – and periods are seldom given serious medical consideration in research. Scant research has been conducted on specific pain prevention or pain relief and devices such as tampons, moon-cups and sanitary towels remain rudimentary.

It’s not only women’s period pain which is taken less seriously, either – ignoring women’s pain is a concerning practise across medicine. Recent research has shown that women’s pain is taken much less seriously by doctors generally.

Stigma around menstruation in rural Nepal can result in poor-health and lack of education for women, but 7 girls from Sindhuli have fought back – with photography

[…]

“Being able to deal with periods in a hygienic and dignified way is crucial to women’s wellbeing. It helps women feel that they are able to play a full role in society, no matter what time of the month.”

Sushma Diyali,15: “This is the picture of mirror and comb that I use at my house. In our society, when girls experience their first menstruation we are not allowed to look into mirrors or comb our hair.Me and my family do not follow such practice. I think mirrors and combs are the means of cleanliness and as a human it’s very important that you should stay clean and healthy. Only if my friends just like me could grow in an environment where are no limitations regarding menstruation and receive more support from the families, they can set themselves free and explore greater potential and opportunities around them is what I think.” (WaterAid)

“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” the title of a poster exhibit at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, comes from a speech Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, then first lady of the United States, gave to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in September 1995.

“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference,” Clinton said, “it is that human rights are women’s rights. And women’s rights are human rights.”

For those of you who are not familiar with Myers-Briggs or the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), it is a personality profiling system based on Jung’s typological theory that was developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. In the Myers-Briggs typology system, there are sixteen personality types consisting of four letters: E for extrovert or I for introvert, S for sensor or N for intuitive, T for thinker or F for feeler, and P for perceiver or J for judger. Psychologist David Keirsey later sorted these types into four temperaments. You can read more about Myers-Briggs here and find books about it here. Myers-Briggs typology can offer a lot of insight into how someone thinks, and in the case of an author, how someone writes.

Liquid meal maker Soylent is stopping sales of its flagship powder, warning that a handful of customers reported stomach sickness after consuming it.

Soylent had already halted shipments of its months-old nutrition bar because of customer complaints of diarrhea, vomiting and upset stomachs. In an announcement late Thursday, the Los Angeles company said there appears to be a common ingredient that’s causing trouble in the latest version of its nutritional powder and its snack bar. The products share several common ingredients, Soylent said, but the investigation isn’t complete.

Backed by more than $20 million in venture capital, Soylent has emerged as one of several popular start-ups hoping to change what and how people eat. Meant to be mixed with water or other liquids, the powder has enough fats, carbohydrates and other nutrients to replace a traditional meal, according to the company. People looking for a quick fix, such as software programmers in Silicon Valley, have become devotees.

Leaves scream their final cries in color before dropping to the ground. Their shouts — in golden, crimson or scarlet — eventually fade to brown bellows, and their lifeless bodies dry up on the forest floor. It absorbs their crinkly corpses and that’s it — worm food. The fall of a leaf in autumn is an orchestrated death. A complex, brilliant, beautiful death.

Right now across the United States, fall foliage season is peaking, and everyone’s out to get a peep at the fiery show. Hiking trails are crowded. Mountain roads are packed, andleaf cams are getting lots of love. When you think of it as watching the death of leaves, it sounds morbid, but it’s captivating nonetheless. Does the way some turn red in the process serve any purpose?

Leaves actually start out yellow. Chlorophyll, the chemical responsible for giving leaves their green appearance and converting light to energy during photosynthesis, just overpowers it in the spring and summer. But when temperature, daylight and weather events like rain or drought cause leaves to die in the fall, chlorophyll breaks down and reveals the yellow or orange helper chemicals known as carotenes or carotenoids that were there all along.

Red is another story, because it’s made on purpose. As some leaves die, they produce chemicals called anthocyanins (also found in the skin of grapes and apples) from built up sugars. These chemicals produce a red pigment that can combine with green pigments left from chlorophyll and display different shades of red.

How bright this red is depends on what species the leaf belongs to, its inherent genetics and the environment around it — including the forest, the tree, and individual leaves, said John Silander, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at The University of Connecticut.

Well, the leaves are not as brilliant as I have seen before here in Banjoville…but they sure are pretty. Take a look, this is at Cowrock Mountain on the Appalachian Trail.

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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.

You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.